Wednesday, September 29, 2010

E-mail: Land Raider Loganwing?

E-mail in. Be forewarned, it's a doozy :PHey Chumb,

I had a small birthday event yesterday, as a result of which I now have 2 boxes of LRC/LRR sitting next to me. Now, I do have the option of trading them in for other stuff, but I'd prefer to be able to use them, since they were a present. Now, I know that it's difficult to make good use of Raiders with Wolves, since you can't get hammernators for 40 points. The other option would be to do a Vulkan army, but I'd rather not have to paint all those rhinos, Razorbacks, and Speeders that I already have. With that in mind, I've tried to write a list which uses 2 LRCs while remaining somewhat competitive. Now, my thinking was that I shouldn't spend more than 200 points for the contents of each raider, since that's how much 5 hammernators would be. So, the advantages I can identify for Wolves running land raiders are as following:

- Can make termies scoring. It's true that it's not possible to get cheap hammernators, but basic termies are quite cheap. This, combined with the ability to equip WG individually might allow me to make a unit comparable in effectiveness to 5 hammernators.

- Logan's USR and +1 attack bubble: when comparing Logan with Vulkan, which I would use if I was doing vanilla, Logan is significantly more expensive, but I can use him to give Preferred enemy to his unit, which is better than master crafted weapons, although this only works for one unit. The attack bubble is pretty awesome as well, but being one use means that I would need to have one very decisive assault phase.

- Rune Priests. My thought here was to give the 2 land raiders a cover save as they advance, which should make 2 raiders pretty hard to stop.

Now, the issue with that is that logan and a runepriest is already almost 400 points in HQs. Still though, I thought I'd give it a go to write a list based on this.

Here it is:

Logan Grimnar

275

Rune Priest

100

5 Wolf Guard in Terminator Armour

2 with Power Fist and Storm Bolter

2 with Storm Shield and Power Weapon

1 with Heavy Flamer and Power Weapon

220

Dedicated Transport: LRC with Multi Melta

260

5 Wolf Guard in Terminator Armour

2 with Power Fist and Storm Bolter

2 with Storm Shield and Power Weapon

1 with Heavy Flamer and Power Weapon

220

5 Grey Hunters

Flamer

LasPlas RB

150

5 Grey Hunters

Flamer

LasPlas RB

150

3 Long Fangs

2 Missile Launchers

Las Plas RB

140

3 Long Fangs

2 Missile Launchers

Rhino

Rifleman Dread

125

Total: 2000

Now, I'm not entirely convinced about it. The units of WG don't seem to have that much punch, with 9 PW attacks and 6 PF attacks on the charge. The 2 IGs help, with the unit that has logan getting an additional 6 attacks and rerolling to-hit, and the unit with the priest getting an extra 3 PW attacks. However, that for 1300 points? sounds kinda crap tbh. I like the heavy flamers on them, maybe I should go with a much less tooled up unit, just having 2 Termies with flamers and Fist, maybe a couple power weapons and just going with number of attacks as well as 2 heavy flamers. 240 points will give me 10 wolf guard, with 2 heavy flamers, 6 PF attacks and 32 normal attacks.

Anyway, do you think Land Raiders can be worked into Space Wolves? It doesn't have to be Logan Wing, (I will be building a foot Logan Wing army), this is just the only way I could see it work. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

43

I was gonna go on some whole spiel about the problems SW have with Land Raiders, but you did it all for me. Jerk :P

Personally, I hadn't really considered it, due to all the reasons you laid out. Hammernators are just too awesome, really. SW have a lot going for them, but rocks aren't one of them (or, rather, relatively cheap and versatile rocks). The strengths of the SW book are awesome HQs, cheap and versatile Troops, cheap and spammable firepower, and cav. With TWC around, SW can deliver their powerful assault units without relying on transport.

Looking at what you made up, I wouldn't change all that much. I think I'd rather go for bigger units of Fangs, Speeders and power armor to fill out those Land Raiders.

Since we can't take Hammernators, which are anvils and hammers, we go 2 more specialized units. BCs dish out a ridiculous number of attacks and make up for WS3 with numbers and re-rolls from Logan. They do quantity, he does quality. The WG are your anvil. Back that up with a good amount of missiles and Speeders for disruption.

It's not great by any stretch, but that just shows how SW and Vanilla marines operate differently.

Don't forget the Iron Priest 15 pt saga ability to move an additional 3" and still fire to full effect. This makes a totally different army, dependant on tooled up characters+ wargear wolves, as well as cyberwolves, but keeps the points down to around your 200 - 300 pt range each per raider. Add in a few 10 pt powerfists (servitors), and you can even fix your ride when it gets busted! While not the strongest army, it is the best use I have found for raiders in a wolf army, as you do get that sweet second turn assult. Add in a bunch of Typhoons and troop out some razor spam, and you're all set for this army.